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Original poster

Absolutely Unputdownable Books

259 replies

spacemonkey · 27/02/2004 18:54

Just interested to know what books mumsnetters found absolutely impossible to put down ...

Here are some of mine:

  • Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
  • anything by Jane Austen
  • Villette - Charlotte Bronte
  • Diary of a Nobody - George & Weedon Grossmith
  • If This Is A Man - Primo Levi
  • His Dark Materials Trilogy - Philip Pullman
  • The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell
  • Moab is my Washpot - Stephen Fry
  • Things Can Only Get Better - John O'Farrell
  • The Consolations of Philosophy - Alain de Botton

and (ahem) all the Harry Potters

What are yours?

OP posts:
OldieMum · 27/02/2004 20:33

Matthew Kneale - English Passengers
Peter Carey - Oscar and Lucinda; Jack Maggs
John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga
Rachel Cusk - A Life's Work: on becoming a mother
Thornton Wilder - The Bridge at San Louis Rey
Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children
John Lukacs - Five Days in London: May 1940
Antony Beevor - Books on Stalingrad and the Fall of Berlin
Richard Overy - Russia's War
Anne Tyler - Back When We Were Grown-ups

binkie · 27/02/2004 20:39

Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller

and can I say Marghanita Laski, Little Boy Lost again, or will somebody please tell me to shut up?

squirmyworm · 27/02/2004 20:47

Posey, I love Donna Tartt's 'Secret History' - couldn't get through her second book tho'

lilibet · 27/02/2004 20:59

so glad you said that 'The Little Friend' is one of the few books that I haven't been able to get all the way thru. Just didn't care what happened to any of the characters.

I have just read 'The Soldiers Return' by Melvyn Bragg which was fantasic and very unputdownable.

hoxtonchick · 27/02/2004 21:47

Anything by Barbara Trapido
Anything by Armistead Maupin
Used to like Nancy Mitford when I was younger, not quite so convinced now
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Nice Work by David Lodge
The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies

I'm reading The Little Friend at the moment, & it's OK, but I agree that it's not nearly as good as The Secret History.

Am now going to scour my bookshelves to see what I've forgotten....

Posey · 27/02/2004 21:51

Squirmyworm - it was The little Friend. I did read it all but kept looking to see how many pages I still had to get through

miggy · 27/02/2004 21:58

KS-just bought the quincunx from Amazon, thanks to your rave reviews-if I hate it you're in big trouble

prufrock · 27/02/2004 21:58

ks - I know I should be rereading the Quincunx and making notes but I have completely lost my brain due to pregnancy so probably couldn't get through the first chapter.
My most recent unputdownable books were his dark materials - got them for Xmas and had finished all three by 30th Dec, and in tears for the last hour of reading.

prufrock · 27/02/2004 21:59

miggy - you have to start it as soon as it arrives. And take notes!

kiwisbird · 27/02/2004 22:02

Vanity Fair
War and Peace
Anything by Mavis Cheek... She is brilliant!
But best of all is Anita Shreve ohhhhh love it love it love it....
Fortunes Rocks, Strange Fits of Passion... Eden Close...
And most poignant of all... Sophies Choice, I still weep...

sammac · 27/02/2004 22:05

collision- hace you read Robert Crais? Methinks you would enjoy him too. Or Harlan Coben, same kind of thing as JP

kiwisbird · 27/02/2004 22:26

Mmmm Coben is excellent, very goos sense of humour too

Original poster
spacemonkey · 27/02/2004 22:50

I keep remembering more ... Year of the King by Antony Sher

OP posts:
Beccarollover · 27/02/2004 22:56

I second Sophies Choice - I wrote to the author after I finished it, it had such an effect on me - she wrote back too

Beccarollover · 27/02/2004 22:57

DOH! I need to sleep

I meant Hannahs gift not Sophies choice

Sorry!

zebra · 27/02/2004 22:59

Couldn't read Sophie's Choice, not after seeing the movie, not after having my own children.
Maybe I'll make time to read some of these books by not dossing on MN all the time.

Original poster
spacemonkey · 27/02/2004 23:06

have just ordered the quincunx and When We Were Orphans from amazon - I knew starting this thread would be fatal for my bank account

OP posts:
carla · 27/02/2004 23:12

Follow Your Heart, by Susanna Tamaro. Borrow it from the library if you don't believe me. Even if you're not a mum, this one will keep you up all night.

Second on my list - oooooh what's that one - Jamaica Inn (I think, by Daphnie du Maurier) had me up all night too, but that was before childen!

soothepoo · 27/02/2004 23:36

I skived a day off work to read The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. Found Dracula spellbinding, particularly the first part of the book when Harker is in the castle. Am now inspired to start the Pullman trilogy.

suzywong · 27/02/2004 23:58

Soo
those two are my favourite gothic novels, the narrative structure of Dracula, the letters, is genius isn't it?

Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters is very like The Woman in White, but more Lesbian sex.

lilibet · 28/02/2004 09:04

Spacemonkey!!!!

Me too, and you are the only other person I have ever heard of who owns that book!!

Did you see it? Have you seen him since?

He really is wonderful. Can I just sneak in that mine is signed by the author and is some thing that I would rescue form a burning house (but thats another thread)

Others:-
Woman in White
Watership Down
Most things by Anita Shreve (I need to talk to someone who has read both The Last Time they Met and The Weight of Water without spoiling things for anyone who hasn't read both)
I like Robert Goddard
His Dark Materials
Lord of The Rings
Pride and Prejudice
Emma
Wives and Daughters

loads and loads more but cant think at this time in the morning!

melsy · 28/02/2004 09:19

Lilibet I can talk to you about Anita shreve , I love her books have them all, such mysterious places she conjours in the mind.

zebra · 28/02/2004 10:02

Oooh!! When I dared to venture into this thread again, realised I have read a lot of the books you all mention (actually, I rather didn't like a lot of them, but to each their own). I'm not as inadequate as I thought.
Anyway, my contribution: The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks.

suzywong · 28/02/2004 10:04

Ah, so that's the way your mind works Zebra!
(Euurgh the baby with the steel helmet!!!!)

ks · 28/02/2004 11:18

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